Tuesday, February 26, 2013

My granddaughter Melissa and her husband Spencer and
daughters Molly and Adele are traveling again. They left for New York several
years ago and although Spencer had a job and great dancing lessons waiting for
him they could not find housing that they could afford. This is their mode of
travel for their first trip.

They came back home and we were glad. But they have traveled
here and there since. This is their second trip which was just to visit farms
and relatives. Above is Molly on a work horse at one of the farms.

And now they are on their way first to visit Minnesota and Spencer’s
Mom and Dad. But then it’s on to
Maryland where they will be interning on a farm. That is something they have
been dreaming about for quite a long time. And strangely enough it goes with
the art, dancing and acting. And the
goodness and grace ofJesus is in it
all. Here is their mode of transportation now:

And here is their blog which tells all of their stories. I had trouble posting some of the pictures but there are a lot of pictures on the blog. The link, after this posting moves down and away, can be found at the end of my links.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

At the moment there is a confusing array of thoughts, issues
and opinions about Israel and Palestine among evangelicals and they, the members of the evangelical community, are topsy-turvy
in their approach. And let’s be clear much of the reason for the topsy-turvy
approach is because of the complexity of the issues. But there are some evangelical
leaders both in the United States and Great Britain who are so pro Palestine that
they fail to see all of the issues. One person, Stephen Sizer, in the UK, I have already written
about, but there is a professor in the United States, Gary Burge of Wheaton College,
who is getting extra press lately by people who don’t quite
understand or are ignoring some issues.

For example, just recently Christianity Today in their five
books recommendation series allowed Burge to recommend five books on the Israelis
and Palestinians. His “My
Top 5 Books on Israel & Palestine,” included I Am a Palestinian Christian by Mitri
Raheb. Raheb, who is both a liberation theologian and a universalist, at
the 2010 Christ at the Checkpoint Conference, gave a
speech in which he insisted that the Jews from Europe were not related to
the ancient Israelites. In other words he is an anti-Semite taking the Jewish
identity away from its rightful owners.

Burge might be excused on the grounds that he did not know
this. However, both Burge and Raheb spoke at the same checkpoint conference—and
surely they both read the painful account that the Simon
Wiesenthal Center gave of the event. A Further problem with the list is
that although it is suppose to be about both Israel and Palestine all of the
book recommendations are pro Palestinian.

Another site where Burge has gotten some attention is a
recent hard copy of The PresbyterianLayman, in which a review of Burge’s book, Jesus and the Jewish Festivals is offered. Professor Kenneth E
Bailey, a respected and excellent scholar on the Scriptures, the Middle East and its culture
writes the review. While some are concerned with finding this in the Layman, I
am not. My reasons are two: among the good books offered by the Layman is A Passion for Christ: The Vision that
Ignites Ministry by Thomas F. Torrance, James B. Torrance and David W.
Torrance. One of the chapters, written by D. Torrance is “The Mission of
Christians and Jews.”

D. Torrance’s chapter is aimed at the Christian community’s
responsibility to the Jews. And he insists that God continues to confront the
nations through the Jews even writing, “The continuing presence of the Jewish
people today-particularly their presence back in the promised land – reminds us
that we and the nations have to reckon with a living, personal God. He is a God
who acts in space and time, a God of judgment as well as mercy.” D. Torrance
also reminds the reader that despite Hitler’s attempt to obliterate the Jewish
people—they instead, once again, gained their homeland proving that God is also
the God of history.

My second reason for not being bothered by the good review
Bailey gives of Burge’s book is that now and then a scholar who is mistaken sociologically or politically in such areas as anti-Semitism or is at least on the verge of being so, nonetheless produces good scholarly work. And we should not ignore the work. Perhaps the best, but saddest, example is
Gerhard Kittel. Most New Testament scholars
make use of his Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament and yet Kittel became a National Socialist
aligned with the Nazis. He even went to prison for a short time after WW II. He is condemned for his anti-Semitism not his scholarship.

Perhaps the driving force behind some evangelicals who slip
into the grey world that upholds the needs and desires of Palestinians, but
does not uphold the security needs of the Israelis, is a bit of arrogance connected
to the idea of good works. Sometimes activism overreaches the meaning of peace
or righteousness. We too often live sloppy lives in the midst of complexity. Burge
has done this although he might not recognize his own failure.

Joe and Gev, bloggers affiliated with the Messianic Jews of
Israel, placed a posting about Stephen Sizer and Burge on their site, The
Rosh Pina Project. They also placed a video of a supposed confrontation with
the Israel Defense forces. In part of
the video, at 9:24, Burge leans in close to a young soldier attempting to prove
to him that he is breaking his soul. As the author of the post puts it:

"At 9:24 Gary Burge, professor at Wheaton College gets into the face
of an Israeli soldier and tells him that he is destroying himself and it will
break his soul… your heart is being crushed by this! The soldier is even
willing to discuss with Burge who has been so patronising
and pompous with him. Burge then boasts about his
conversation with the soldier on film with Sizer the cameraman,
unethically revealing the soldier’s name and where he lives having told him he
needs to save his heart, but does not tell him how! The implication of Burge
telling the solider that just following orders, was an echo of other times, was
yet another attempt to make Israelis look like Nazis."

Who is the real maker of peace in this video? One might suspect it is the young man with a very large gun in his hand, who is passive in the midst of harassment. This is a topsy-turvy
world, a complex time for the reformed, evangelical and orthodox Christian. Paul
writes of God’s love that it is kind, “does not brag and is not arrogant. Does
not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own; is not provoked, does not take
into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but
rejoices with the truth; bears all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians
134-7)

Monday, February 18, 2013

Jesus prayed for a unity among his followers sanctified
by the truth of his Father’s word. (John 7:15-19; 22-24) He also warned his
disciples that following him would bring a sword between them and others
including their family. (Matt. 10: 34-36) While the Covenant Network of
Presbyterians speaks and writes constantly about unity, they also make statements
that show their intentions of pushing the orthodox from the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.). Their sword is often poised to sever. In 2011, they published Guidelines
for Examination of Church Officers which insists that those candidates who are
unable for conscience sake to ordain practicing LGBT persons cannot themselves be
ordained.

Now they are insisting that teaching elders may officiate at
same gender civil marriages. In other words, without a denominational court’s
decision and without a yes vote of the General Assembly they are attempting to
perpetrate their own laws and decrees. Board member, Timothy Cahn, has written in “Thoughts
on Officiating at Same Gender Blessing Services” this statement:

Teaching elders may participate in a civil
ceremony of marriage for a same-gender couple. Nothing in the
Constitution or polity prohibits a teaching elder from signing a legal
certificate or license of marriage or acting as a witness to the civil
marriage. (Bold the author’s)

They base this statement on the “Presbytery
of Newark v. McNeill, (2012), Disc. Case 221-02,” which did not have
to do with a teaching elder officiating at a same gender marriage. Rather the
case was about a teaching elder being married in a same gender wedding.
Although most of the orthodox in the PC (U.S.A.) would disagree with the
commission’s ruling in this case it is nonetheless different than a case against
one who officiates at a same gender wedding.

If this were not true then there would have been no reason
for Tara Spuhler McCabe to be censured by her presbytery for officiating at a
same gender wedding. The Presbytery in that case in fact stated:

Whereas you, Tara Spuhler McCabe, admit the
offense of officiating at a same-sex marriage ceremony on or about April 28,
2012, and admit that by such offense you have acted contrary to the
Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA); now, therefore, the Presbytery
of National Capital, in the name and authority of the Presbyterian Church (USA),
rebukes you.

Furthermore, while giving advice about how teaching elders
could somehow use a religious same gender blessing after a civil ceremony, Cahn suggests there likely would not be any consequences
past a rebuke if one combined civil and religious ceremonies together. He ends with
this:

Finally, for those who reject
applying the fine distinctions suggested above, but who instead decide to
provide the same service of marriage to same-gender couples, accusations and
charges likely will come. It is likely, however, the practical
consequences from such a charge would not be severe. Experience from
other cases has been that Investigating Committees and Prosecuting Committees
will apply only the mildest form of discipline, a Rebuke, to teaching elders
who are found guilty of the offense of officiating at a disapproved same-gender
wedding ceremony.

The duplicity of both statements, one on the legality of officiating
at civil ceremonies and one on proceeding to break vows because you won’t
suffer any grave consequences, cancels out any real concerns for a unity
sanctified by truth. The theology is not sound, the polity maneuvers are
dishonest. Those within the PC (U.S.A.) who are still here in obedience to
Christ’s call are continually placed under the sword of division. Jesus used
the word “enemies.” “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

If members of the Covenant Network be they professors,
teaching elders or ruling elders, persist and officials in the PC (U.S.A) continue
to stand behind them it will be enough to split the denomination far beyond
what they now see or might imagine. There are some places that faithful
Christians cannot go. In my lifetime I have seen prostitutes, witches, drug
dealers, and the self-righteous church member who did not know Jesus Christ confess
their sins and come to him. I have watched faithful Christians enter into the sinner’s
lives to lead them toward Christ. But a Christian cannot go where duplicity and
sin live together without repentance.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Yes, there is heaven, and there is hell-but the question “What
are we being saved from?” posted by teaching elder John Vest is surely facing
the wrong direction. He wants to go around the answer he believes orthodox
Christians give, which he sees as this:

American pop Christianity has a
pretty straightforward answer: we’re being saved from hell. The narrative of
this common understanding of Christianity is simple. Every human being will one
day be judged by God, with the righteous going to heaven and the wicked going
to hell. But as sinners, we are all by nature worthy of eternal punishment in
hell. This is where Jesus steps in, through his bloody death (and maybe
something about his resurrection), to somehow save us from the wrathful hands
of our angry God.

Like a growing number of
people, I just don’t find this story very compelling anymore.

But perhaps there is more to the answer—Jesus saves us from ‘death- forever death.’ And of course the
resurrection, the bodily resurrection, looms big in the answer. It isn’t just
something about the resurrection. The gospel in a nutshell is “For God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him
shall not perish, but have eternal life.” But God in his holy word goes much
further so that we might understand. Jesus’ words:

All
that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will
certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own
will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent me,
that of all that he has given me; I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last
day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and
believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the
last day. (John 6: 37-40)

So the will of the Father is that everyone who beholds the
Son and believes in him will have eternal life. And that life is the life of
the Son. Beautiful words. Words that will not fail us. Many want to move away
from a bloody cross, but a life that dies with the dying Christ, and rises with
him, united forever to the risen Son of God, bearing his righteousness alone,
will live this earthly life with grace shining toward and for the world’s
brokenness and live forever in the eternal shelter of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

This is a quote taken from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Meditations
on Psalm 119.” It was written 1939-40-after the time of the closure of Finkenwalde
and during the time of the “illegal underground pastorates.”[1]

This section is from
verse 20, “My soul is crushed by longing
for your demands at all times.”

“Because the yearning for God’s word is not born of the
soul, it does not pass like trembling or a frenzy of the soul in an hour or
day. It cannot be compared to the longing of the soul for a beloved person,
because this only lasts for a while, whereas the longing for God, which crushes
the soul, is “at all times.” It cannot be otherwise, when it comes over us from
God himself. It must be everlasting. It has nothing to do with a sudden surge,
with a one-time dedication of the heart to God’s word. The “at all times” is
decisive. The longing for God’s word is distinguished, not by the heat of piety,
but by the perseverance to the Word until the end.

This is precisely why it would be wrong to mistake religious
euphoria for this longing. On the contrary, what is being spoken of here is precisely
the experience of being crushed under the burden of this longing. The longing
is less likely to consist in the bliss of religious exuberance than in seeing
the triumph of the presumed rights of human beings, yet hoping for God’s right
and relying on it; of living in a foreign land and yet being unable to forget
the homeland; in misery, need, and guilt of being unable to come free of God;
of having to seek God where intellect and experience reject him; of having to
call to God when all strength sinks in death; of experiencing God’s word as the
power over our life that does not release us, even for a moment. Thus, the “at
all times” is not an exaggeration but can be understood as a reality.” (Italics mine) [2]

Monday, February 11, 2013

My daughter who is in graduate school wrote about the
difference between humanism and modernism. When it comes to such words and
definitions, conversations can be interesting, even stimulating. But when such words shape lives, attitudes and
eternal destinies, conversations can be pitiful and meaningless. Some grieve
over the atheists in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and we all should. Although
the atheists will not grieve for themselves we should grieve with fervent
prayer for them and for the destructive force they bring to our denomination.

But atheism is not the only destructive force pushing its
way into the PC (U.S.A.). I am not talking about immorality. Immorality has a
solution: the cross, the blood of Christ, the resurrection. But what if there
is teaching within the denomination, which still has to do with religion, yet at
every turn it cancels out the work of Christ on the cross? And we keep calling
it Christianity. We keep refusing to call it heresy.

It is true, atheism is growing even in the church, but there
is still a creeping movement which resembles both the human potential movement
as well as the new age movement pushing in the doors. One should point out that
there are similarities between atheism and the other religious movements that
are changing the way we think about God and ourselves.

For instance atheism is materialism. Everything is explained
by science—there is nothing supernatural. But on the other hand there is the
idea that everything is one and that we are a part of that one or that we, our
true selves, are theone.This has been called, by some,
supernatural naturalism.Both of these belief systems remove a
transcendent being that is both other and personal.

Both kinds of heresy inhabit the PC (U.S.A). For instance John
Shuck writes about the after life,"that
human consciousness is the result of natural selection. Human beings do
not have immortal souls nor will consciousness survive death. Thus there is no
afterlife. There is no heaven, no hell, and no need for salvation from one
realm to another." And among other thoughts, he adds, “I give my heart to
that reality.” That is a closed system and one that is held by Shuck with fervent
faith.

True Self "If souls are
like sparks flying out into the infinite night, then true Self is not only the
sparks, but also the night, the universe, and the field that the universe
arises in. (Pure awareness) The cosmic joke is that the soul is made of that
which the soul is searching for: immortal consciousness." Enlightenment is
to realize that who you are essentially is the same immortal consciousness.
God, soul and unvierse (sic) are realized as One.[1]

This second view of reality is also a closed box. One never
connects with anything transcendent and personal. The ending also holds no
relationships, no community, since it is non-dualistic. One is as destructive
to the Christian faith as the other. Both are void of the redemptive acts of
Jesus Christ.

And one of the problems with heresy in the denomination is
the way such thoughts spread and corrupt.
The extremely bold heresy taught by Hendrix, has a soft, pliable and useful
counterpart when it is turned into a popular kind of pluralistic spirituality —we
almost miss the point. For example Tara
Spuhler McCabe in her article about marrying a same sex couple and being disciplined
for it writes of discipline in faith:

Discipline in faith is,
for me, the practice of navigating and relishing the mystery of it all. It is
daily acknowledging that I am a part of others within the embrace of the
Sacred. For me, faith has always been. Faith is not nothing and never just
something. It is a cultivated awareness of how the intricacies of creation are
connected to one another. Disciplined faith is not unlike the way I have taught
kids to be with the ocean while at the beach: Always be in awe of its beauty
and power. You get to be a part of this and enjoy it, but you are never more
powerful than it. Know your place within the beauty and power of it all.

This is a statement about faith that has nothing to do with Christianity.
It is the way heresy becomes diluted in the denomination while at the same time
being strong enough to carry the weight of antinomianism. It is a weak
panentheism which prevents the sinner from reaching the cross and finding
forgiveness.

There are other heresies floating through our denomination—not
differences of opinion on minor issues—but true heresies. Anything that cancels
out a personal God, bypasses the Trinity, changes the identity of Jesus Christ,
fully human, fully God, declares that the cross is unnecessary, and belittles
the word of God is heresy in full bloom.

Most of the New Testament epistles are concerned with the
heresies that arose in the first churches. And Paul in the first history of the
church, Acts, declares to the Ephesians that some will appear like wolves ready
to tear the church in pieces:

"Be on
guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has
made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his
own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you
not sparing the flock; and from your own selves men will arise, speaking
perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:28-30)"

The essentials are important. Jesus the risen Lord, giving
instructions through the apostle John, in the book of Revelation upholds the
faithful. He promises the faithful in the church of Thyatira who have not held
the false teachings promoted by the woman called Jezebel that he, among other
things, will give them the morning star.

One of my first inklings of what Christianity was really
about came through the preaching of a Free Methodist preacher. When I was
eleven I visited the church with a friend. The pastor preached on Jesus as the
morning star. He explained that sometimes when we are sick in the night it
seems so dark and so lonely. And then we see the morning star shining brightly,
and we know that night is almost over. I was often sick as a child and I
experienced the pastor’s analogy.

The faithful in Thyatira were encouraged to hold fast to the
faith and they were promised that they would carry no other burden, but the
burden of standing faithful in the midst of the false teaching that other
members kept promoting. And they were promised, besides a minor issue of ruling
the nations, the morning star, hope fulfilled, Jesus Christ.

[1]Hendrix
references this to a web site, http://www.enneagraminstitute.com online test
but it does come from Jaxon-Bear’s book.

Koenig writes with a focus on polity and pastoral care as
seen, not from the biblical text or the faith of the church, but as they relate
to equality. But biblical equality can only be defined as the use of equal Christian
care for those who belong to Christ—which means Christian faith is strengthened
by the word, sacraments and proper discipline.

Koenig attempts to make a case for teaching elders having to
choose between keeping the vow of “being governed by our church’s policy” or their
vow to “seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for
the reconciliation of the world,” to “pray for and seek to serve the people
with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love” and to “car[e] for people…
and try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ.”

But a Christian and a pastor do not need to choose between
these two vows. The denomination’s polity is biblical and caring. When one
follows Jesus Christ as a pastor the word is proclaimed which includes the
admonition to be holy as God is holy. The sinner is corrected, disciplined,
loved and forgiven. To insist on marrying same sex couples is neither loving
nor does it honor Christ. In these cases the choice is really between keeping
one’s ordination vows and going the way of a decadent culture.

Koenig writes her brief history of the church’s struggle by
looking at the cases involving same gender marriage since the Authoritative
Interpretation of 1991 which allowed for the blessing of same sex couples. She
insists that the GAPJC, in the case of (Spahr
v. Redwoods, Disciplinary Case 218-12) is what actually ruled
against teaching elders marrying same gender couples. The Directory of Worship consequently
has no real authority.

Quoting part of the dissent to the ruling from (Spahr v. Redwoods,(Disciplinary
Case 220-08), Koenig also insists that the Directory of Worship has no real
legal authority. Reading the quote one finds that the dissent is based on the
changing of public morals. They write, “it reflects conventions of a time when
same-sex unions presented little, if any, cultural concern or attention…” and
also on the fact that that section of the Directory of Worship is simply
biblical instruction. As those who dissent state:

W-4.9001 is an introductory narrative for a
distinctive, introductory section on marriage, outlining its biblical and
theological characteristics as background to provisions of pastoral practice
and nurture… As a
fourfold theological outline of Christian marriage in narrative form, in no way
is it clear or obvious that it proposes regulatory imperative or legal
intention.

Two glaring issues arise out of this. For the Christian,
what the Scripture text calls sin is always sin and is not about “conventions”
but about walking faithfully in union with Christ. Because the issue of same
sex marriage has arisen in this our time what is written in the Directory of
Worship, is now more important than when originally written. Secondly, the idea
that the biblical and theological characteristics of marriage when placed in a
Book of Order have no binding affect on the Church is illogical. Is the
Christian community only to be ruled by legal terms and not by God’s word?

Koenig goes further, insisting that a change in the
Directory of Worship would not affect those who for conscience sake could not
marry same sex couples, writing, “Both civil law and the Book of Order have
always granted ministers discretion to refuse to perform a marriage against
their better judgment or convictions; there is no danger that Presbyterians who
disapprove of same-gender marriage will be forced to participate in such a
service contrary to their conscience.” Koenig is being disingenuous. There are
two probabilities if the Directory of Worship is changed.

If same sex marriage becomes a national civil right, it is possible
that pastors who refuse to perform such marriages while they are
(hypothetically) members of a denomination which allows such marriages could be
sued for discrimination.

Secondly, since the Covenant Network, of which Koenig is a
leader, is working toward a time when candidates for ministry would be refused ordination
because they could not for, conscience sake, ordain LGBT persons, and that refusal
is based on the idea that they could not, in every respect, fulfill their
duties as a minister of word and sacrament, the same will undoubtedly be true
on the issue of same sex marriage.[1]
(Please see Guidelines
for Examination of Church Officers: Covenant Network of Presbyterians .) Surely since
the CN is looking toward that time when all must ordain LGBT persons they would
also insist that all teaching elders must perform same sex weddings.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Brian Ellison, executive director of the Covenant Network of
Presbyterians, an advocacy group for LGBT ordination and same gender marriage,
begins a series of postings by various writers on same gender marriage. The series is found at Ecclesio.com.

Ellison’s posting is entitled “SameSex Marriage: The Church’s Next Big Thing.” While I could quibble with even
the title, after all the Church is more than the PC (U.S.A.) and same sex
marriage might better be described as the denomination’s next ‘Big’ aberrant undertaking,
I want to focus on one paragraph. After quoting
from President Obama’s inaugural address, “Our journey is not complete until
our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for
if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another
must be equal as well,” Ellison wrote:

The Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.), however, has not spoken such a clear gospel word. The Book of Order,
in passages reaffirmed at the 1983 reunion and rooted in language adopted much
earlier, when gay marriage was hardly on anyone’s radar, stubbornly maintains
that “Marriage is a civil contract between a man and a woman,” even though the
statement is flatly inaccurate in nine states and the District of Columbia. It
proceeds to limit its definition of covenantal love to a woman and a man,
without articulating why it must be exclusively so. The widely used liturgy for
a “Service of Christian Marriage” in the Book of Common Worship likewise
reflects its 1993 publication date, waxing poetic about the purpose and
blessing of marriage in exclusively heterosexual terms.

To begin with Ellison has chosen his adjectives carefully, stubborn
rather than biblically faithful! So those who insist on marriage between a man
and woman have tenacity or firmness of purpose. I sometimes tease my husband
that his tenacity (which is great) has gotten him into trouble. But praise God
for the tenacity of the saints—they were troubled also—it often meant their
blood was (and is) shed—but the Church is watered by that blood and grows.

Next, words about equality, such as the president spoke, are
not the gospel. The Gospel is the good news that Jesus, fully human, fully God,
lived, died and was resurrected for our salvation which includes forgiveness of
our sins, an abundant life and eternal fellowship with the Creator of the
universe, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, the understanding that “marriage is a civil contract
between a man and a woman,” can easily be changed without giving way to
cultural decadence even when it is embedded in state law. Try “Although in
several states marriage is now a civil contract between two persons, for the
Church it will always be a civil contract between a man and a woman.” Or the
denomination might simply remove the statement all together, knowing that a
time may have arrived when, for the Church, true marriage, that which joins a man
to a woman, must be referred to as Christian marriage, and as the Roman
Catholics insist, performed only in a Church.

Finally Ellison comes to the crux of the matter when he
writes, “It [the Book of Order] proceeds to limit its definition of covenantal
love to a woman and a man, without articulating why it must be exclusively so.”
So support the wall that some are attacking with the words of Christ:

"Have
you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and
female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and
be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no
longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man
separate. (Matthew 19:4b-6)"

Ellison fails to deal with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s Book of Confessions which in both
Reformation confessions and a modern confession speak of marriage between a
man and a woman. And he is oblivious to the words of the Theological Declaration
of Barmen which insists that, “We reject the false doctrine, as though the
Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own
pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.” It
matters not what either the political views of the President or the ideological
views of the culture, the Church is called to stand, in love, “joined and knit
together” with the lord.

And Barmen warns those, such as Ellison and the Covenant
Network, who wish, in place of the clear admonitions of Bible and Confession,
to join with the State in their sinful behavior:

“The Church’s
commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the
message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore
in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and Sacrament. (8.26)

We
reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place
the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires,
purposes, and plans. (8.27)”

Ellison’s posting is deeply troubling; writing as a Reformed
Christian he turns his posting into a political tract which aligns the Church
with the State in matters of faith. As Hans Asmussen stated in his address
before the Barmen Synod on the two above points from the Declaration, “we have
to stress we know no earthly law by which God’s law could lawfully be broken.”[1]
We must not give to the state the right to define the meaning of Christian marriage.
God makes the covenant with a man and a woman.

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield in her book The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert:
an english professor’s journey into Christian faith allows the Church to
see the unfolding of Christ’s redemptive purposes in an individual’s life. Yet, one sees that his
work was within and through the presence of the Church. Butterfield was a
progressive lesbian; she was an associate professor in the English department
of Syracuse University and her ideological grounding was in Freud, Marx and
Darwin. Butterfield held a “joint teaching appointment in the Center for Women’s
Studies,” and was the “faculty advisor to all the gay and lesbian and feminist
groups on campus.” Butterfield’s book hold’s several unspoken gems for the
Church universal. I will list them.

(1) Butterfield began her journey toward Christ by reading
the Bible. She read it as a researcher who perceived the Bible to be a harmful
text causing destructive actions by those who believed its message. Pastors and
Christian friends, as well as an ex-Presbyterian minister who was transgender,
added to her understanding of the word—but it was always the word. My point here is that in the midst of all of
our searching and planning to be missional we must not forget that it is God
and his word that brings the sinner to Jesus Christ. As the word is read and
proclaimed the Father through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit begins a
work which leads the sinner to the Son.

(2)The pastors and church families of a very conservative
denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, which only sings the Psalms and
that acapella, was used by God to bring Butterfield to Christ. The word preached,
friendship, good conversations over food, honest questions and honest answers, faithfulness:
these are God’s tools. As Butterfield writes:

God sent me to a Reformed and
Presbyterian conservative church to repent, heal, learn and thrive. The pastor
there did not farm me out to a para-church ministry “specializing” in “gay
people.” He and the session knew that the church is competent to counsel …. I
needed (and need) faithful shepherding, not the glitz and glamour that has
captured the soul of modern Evangelical culture. I had to lean and lean hard on
the full weight of scripture, on the fullness of the word of God, and I’m
grateful that when I heard the Lord’s call on my life, and I wanted to hedge my
bets, keep my girl friend and add a little God to my life, I had a pastor and
friends in the Lord who asked nothing less of me than that I die to myself.
Biblical orthodoxy can offer real compassion, because in our struggle against sin,
we cannot undermine God’s power to change lives. (24)

(3) Butterfield’s search for the answer to the question 'why
is homosexuality sinful' led her to some answers that speak about the root of all sin. And this is particularly
interesting to me because of Butterfield's feminist background. Most feminist
who identify themselves as Christian will insist that while men’s sinfulness is
rooted in pride (to be like God) that women’s sin is rooted in passiveness.
However, Butterfield, without denying that the citizen’s of Sodom practiced homosexuality,
uses Ezek. 16:48-50 and goes through each of the sins of Sodom beginning with
pride, which as she reminds the reader is the root of all sin.

Butterfield asks “Why pride?” She answers, “Pride is the
root of all sin. Pride puffs one up with a false sense of independence. Proud
people feel they can live independently from God and from other people. Proud
people feel entitled to do what they want when they want.” And then she goes on
to look at the rest of the sins cataloged in that verse: wealth (materialism),
lack of mercy, lack of discretion and lack of modesty. Butterfield notes that none
of these sins are sexual. As the author puts it, “Sexuality is more a symptom
of our life’s condition than a cause, more a consequence than an origin.
(30-31) Butterfield writes:

Importantly, we don’t see God
making fun of homosexuality or regarding it as different, unusual, or exotic
sin. What we see instead is God’s warning: if you indulge the sins of pride,
wealth, entertainment-lust, lack of mercy, and lack of discretion, you will
find yourself deep in sin—and the type of sin may surprise you. That sin may
attach itself to a pattern of life closely or loosely linked to the list. while sin is not contained by logical categories of progression, nonetheless, sin
is progressive. (31)

The chapters which follow Butterfield’s conversion
experience and her biblical and theological explanations of God’s sovereign
work in the sinner’s life are really about the working out of his purposes in
her life. From a broken relationship to
marriage, from a professorship to homeschooling, from hospitality In the LGBT
community to hospitality to young people and children, the rest of the book The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert
is filled with those good works that God prepared beforehand for all Christians
(Eph. 2:10)

Although I told my husband, the last chapter, “Homeschooling
and Middle Age” did not strike me as something that would hold my interest; I found
it to be the brightest section of the book. It is not only filled with fun,
worms wiggling on the writing desk, frozen birds in the refrigerator to be used
as a specimen, and two young children that instantly recognize a replica of the
Magna Carta of 1215, but also the
redemptive work of God in the lives of some severely broken children.

(4)And this is a final gem for the Church, perhaps unintended.
Redeemed lives are like the above, filled with wiggling worms, peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches, dogs with muddy paws, as well as broken people and days, all
enclosed in the purposes of our Lord. Butterfield has written a small book—a blessing
for the Church at this time in this post-modern culture.

The forming and maintaining of sheep

"None but the Virture understood, in its soaring comprehension, the safety in which the sheep still lived, or from what yet deeper distance of spirit was to arise the Innocence which everlastingly formed and maintained them." The Place of the Lion

Followers

About Me

Writer, Lover of books, interested in the history of intellectual and religious ideas, tend with love gardens, grandchildren and great grandchildren. My husband, Brad, is a retired Steinway Piano tuner. We live in a hundred year old house that always needs repairs.